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What are the advantages of social enterprise?

Advantages for patients and service users, health and social care organisations and the third sector...

...for patients and service users

  • Social enterprises involve patients, staff and service users in designing the services they provide.  This means that services are better tailored to meet patients' and service users' needs and are based on expert knowledge of a particular area.
  • Social enterprises re-invest any surplus profits into the community or into service developments.  This means that social enterprises very often benefit the whole community as well as the people who use their services.
  • Involving patients, staff and service users in designing services.

...for health and social care organisations

  • Social enterprise offers health and social care organisations the opportunity to deliver high quality services in ways that are flexible, non-bureaucratic and have the potential to deliver good value for money.  It also allows health and social care organisations to deliver services that are tailored to their local population, and make a difference to the local community.  Because staff have a stake in social enterprise organisations, experience has shown that they are very committed to the aims of the service, and that this delivers benefits for the organisation, for example, improved staff retention.
  • High quality services: flexible, non-bureaucratic, good value

...for the third sector

  • Third sector organisations have expertise in specific areas, and great understanding of the groups they represent.  They understand how services should be delivered to best meet peoples' needs.  Social enterprise models offer the opportunity for a sound commercial relationship between public sector commissioners of health and social care services and third sector providers of those services.
  • Expertise and understanding of the groups they represent.

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